Ferrari suffered through yet another below par Sunday event, during the 2023 Hungarian Grand Prix, in which drivers Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz, struggled to maintain any solid progress on their rivals.
Max Verstappen took the chequered flag yet again, in what was his seventh consecutive win in a row. Red Bull victorious once again, meant that the Milton Keynes side now have their 12th win on the bounce, beating the 1988 record of 11, set by the McLaren’s of Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost.
Ferrari were left to play catch up, with a miserable qualifying session on Saturday, leaving Leclerc in sixth, and Sainz back in eleventh on the starting grid. Leclerc started on a used set of medium tires, with the Spaniard having a fresh set of softs bolted on to his car. This proved very useful for the latter, as when the lights went out, Sainz was able to get himself up into P6 on the first lap, passing the two Alfas, Alonso, Pérez and Hülkenberg.
With a very poor and painful pitstop of 9.4s for Leclerc, and the inability for Sainz to make any real progress on the grid, meant that by race end, it was a P7 and P8 finish respectively. Speaking to the media after the race, Sainz shared his thoughts on the lacklustre Sunday afternoon:
“We had a good start, making up five places on the first lap, and a very good first stint with the Softs, managing to stretch the tyre life.
“Unfortunately, with the hard compound and longer stints to do,” continued Sainz. “We struggled with rear degradation and didn’t have the pace of the front runners, which is our main weakness at the moment.
“We were expecting more at this track and we need to look into our main areas of improvement,” the driver of car number 55 concluded.
A very trying afternoon for the Scuderia, who are currently playing catch up to their main rivals, who at this point are Mercedes and a revitalised McLaren, as they all fight for ‘best of the rest’ behind the ever dominant Red Bull of Verstappen.
After the Hungarian GP, Ferrari currently sit fourth in the constructors standings, with a points haul of 167 thus far.
